ESTIENNE (Charles)

Lot 145
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Estimation :
10000 - 15000 EUR
ESTIENNE (Charles)
De dissectione partium corporis corporis humani libri tres. Paris, Simon de Colines, 1545. In-folio, rigid vellum, smooth back, gold title in a box on a tinted background (18th century binding). Choulant-Frank, pp. 152-155. - Garrison-Morton, number 378. - Heirs of Hippocrates, No. 256. - Renouard, Colines, pp. 409-410. Original edition of the most beautiful book of anatomy published in France in the 16th century. It is illustrated with 62 beautiful full-page woods and many small engravings in the text. These anatomical figures are of great artistic significance: the human body, generally contorted, is staged in a theatrical manner against a landscape background, leaning against a tree or ancient ruins, in furnished interiors, on a chair, etc. The woods were carved by Étienne de La Rivière, who assisted the author in his dissections, and by Jollat, an engraver active in Paris in the first half of the century. The work, composed by Charles Estienne (1504-1564), a humanist who belonged to the famous dynasty of typographers of the same name, was almost finished in 1539 when a lawsuit brought against the author, who was accused in particular of plagiarizing the famous book of Vésale, interrupted its publication. It was finally printed in 1545 on the presses of Simon de Colines, his father-in-law. Dissection is of major interest in the history of anatomy and neurology. It contains in particular the very first printed illustrations of the venous and nervous system, and the 8 plates depicting the dissected human brain are the most detailed at the time: His eight dissections of the brain, made in 1539, give more anatomical detail than had previously appeared, particularly the first graphical presentation of the difference between the convolutional patterns of the cerebrum and the cerebellum (McHenry, Garrison's History of Neurology, 1969, pp 37-40). Some old handwritten annotations. Modern bookplate ex-libris Giuseppe Zampa. Stain on sheet G4
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